Monday, August 06, 2018

Peter Cetera of Chicago fame recently came through
Morristown, NJ to perform on August 2nd.

As someone who was just a kid in the 80’s when he was
belting out ballads like "Glory Of Love" and "After All", I appreciated his music. Once
I got more into classic rock, and realized he was the voice of Chicago, I
started to dig his tunes even more.

Here we are in 2018 and Peter is still touring, still
singing those ballads AND classic Chicago hits, and making audiences laugh. Yes,
that’s right. Peter has got quite a sense of humor. Upon entering the stage at
the beginning of the show for the song "Restless Heart", he approached the
microphone while the crowd gave an ovation. However, the microphone wasn’t
adjusted correctly and he had to stop and awkwardly fix it. This obviously
delayed the song a bit. But what made it so funny was when he quickly said to
the audience, “Ok forget you saw that. Let’s try that again.” At that
moment we all laughed and he went back and came out again to a much larger
applause. In between songs, Peter would inject funny stories and jokes here and
there to keep the audience engaged.

This show was a bit milder for me, since I’m used to going
to much louder shows. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I thoroughly
appreciated this performance. Peter performed his usual hits like "Glory Of
Love", etc, but what kept it interesting was the introductions and background
stories for each song. It really gave you a glimpse into what went on behind
the scenes during Peter’s long running career.

Closing out the show was Peter and his band performing “25
or 6 to 4”. He can still hit the notes and had the crowd on their feet dancing
along. My only issue was that there was no brass ensemble! To me, there has to
be the brass ensemble to give it that extra kick that the original track had.
But to hear the original singer perform it live again in 2018 after all these
years was good enough.

Overall, a great show and I hope he gets to come back to
the NYC area again soon.